LONGEVITY OF THE ANCIENTS.
According to the biblical account people lived to be 800 and 900 years old. This was principally because of the modification of solar energy. Man’s physical environments impelled long life; and his longevity diminished immediately after the upper deep fell and the sun began to pour his beams upon the race; his environment evidently changed with that event. In a few generations after the flood man died at the age of 120 or 100 years, and finally at three score and ten.
LETTER FROM PROF. I. N. VAIL.
My Dear Dr. Bowers: I have read with much interest thy compendium of “The Earth’s Annular System,” as published by me in 1886. A synopsis of that work can give but a meager idea of the grand conception of the annular evolution of the earth. “The Annular Theory” stands on the immutable truth that worlds evolve according to invariable law.
This compels us to admit that all worlds are made alike, in the general changes they undergo. Just as a bud evolves into a flower of the most delicate construction and architectural order, so a world launched from the same designing Hand must move in the same line of eternal order, and under the law of natural uniformity develop and grow into a completed world.
This also leads us to the conclusion that if one world possess at any time an annular system, then all worlds must possess a similar appendage during some period of their existence. Consequently that simple fact that the planet Saturn possesses at this time an annular or ring system is proof that the earth once had a similar appendage. For we must either admit this truth or we must admit that the planet Saturn has not evolved thus far along a line of nature’s uniformity, but is today a victim of accidental conditions. This law refuses to admit.
But “The Annular Theory” does not rest on these grounds alone. A universe of invariable order pronounces it an immutable truth. The judgment of the chemist and philosopher is positive that a rotating world cannot pass from the molten state to the present condition of the earth without undergoing annular changes.
Since the publication of “The Earth’s Annular System” I have had opportunities of examining more minutely the subjects treated of therein and have secured the most overwhelming evidence that the theory there proposed is in the main correct and will stand the test of all time. I have found, outside the realm of physical science, the most positive evidence that primitive man actually saw at least two rings revolving about the earth, named them and worshiped them as gods. These relics I have rescued from the wreck of ages, and with these I will prove the fact that this earth once had a complex system of Saturn-like rings.
Thus in the end the geologist and astronomer will be compelled to admit its truthfulness whether they desire to or not. I have found among the ruins of ancient Egypt, Babylonia, India and China annular fossils, the identification of which settles at once and forever this great question.